July 18, 64 AD—Rome’s great fire starts, and the capital city burns while Nero reigns. From that day on, Julia’s life changes forever. Still reeling from a tragic loss, she flees from her opulent home and fights to survive. Plumes of smoke rise from the chaos as crumbling buildings and screams of the dying fill her with terror
At last, she makes it to a field bypassed by the fire, but she’s not safe. More danger strikes.
And then she encounters Tribune Marcus.
To write her novel, Pat Wagner researched first-century documents written by the ancient Roman historians, Tacitus and Suetonius.
It’s A.D. 66, and supernatural signs fill the sky above Jerusalem. Almost everyone believes they reveal the Omnipotent One’s promise to deliver the Jews from the Romans. But fifteen-year-old Miriam senses catastrophe is coming . . .
To her, the signs warn the time is drawing near for the fulfillment of Jesus of Nazareth’s prophecy about Jerusalem’s destruction.
Personal tragedy comes upon her amid the approaching storm, and she fears her cherished secret ambition could be lost forever.
At the same time, Baruch, a young man who once admired her, now tests her resolve to forgive him.
If he and Miriam and her family don’t escape from Jerusalem in time, they’ll suffer with the rest of the Jews during the horror soon to come.
But if they leave their ancestral homes, what unknown dangers will they face in a foreign land?
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